Massachusetts Legislature Again Considering More Taxes on Property Sales

At the beginning of March, SPOA began sending multiple emails to its members regarding the dangers of a proposed transfer tax on the sale of property. Please refer to the letter below and act quickly by contacting your elected officials to oppose all such proposals, which are scheduled to be decided by lawmakers on May 9, 2022.

Dear SPOA members and friends, 

 Please contact your state representatives and senators and urge them to oppose all proposals which create a new transfer tax on the sale of property! SPOA believes that imposing a new sales tax on property will damage the housing market and hurt our economy.  

 We oppose all eight of the community specific “Home Rule Petitions” bills that have been filed for Boston, Cambridge, Arlington, Concord, Chatham, Brookline, Somerville, and Provincetown. We are especially concerned that House bill 1377 and Senate bill 868 would go much further and allow any city or town to impose a new tax of up to 2% to a real estate sale! 

 Just as we saw with eviction moratoriums, small property owners are once again targeted unfairly to shoulder the burden, this time to create more affordable housing. We believe that new taxes and onerous legislation will do little to make housing more affordable. In fact, it will have the opposite result. 

 These bills would exclusively target buyers and sellers unfairly, when everyone should contribute to raise the money needed during the imposition of a tax. There will also be great confusion, as these bills would give each of 351 cities and towns the ability to create their own exemptions and thresholds without state approval! 

 The Housing Committee has postponed a vote on House bill 1377 and Senate bill 868 until May 9. So we still have time to make a difference.   

 Please call your state representative and state senator and tell them that these bills are completely unnecessary and counterproductive, given that the state legislature already passed the Community Preservation Act (CPA), which imposes a surcharge on property tax bills that can be used for affordable housing, along with other measures. In fact, the CPA has raised over $2 billion that could have been allocated to affordable housing. Therefore, we should turn our attention to increasing the supply of housing, along with a greater diversity of housing options, instead! 

Please join us in opposing these dangerous bills by contacting your representatives, who can be found at: https://malegislature.gov/search/findmylegislator

Thank you,

Small Property Owners Association (SPOA) 

By Amir Shahsavari and Richard Tisei